Little do they know! When those dramatic doors Of redeeming aluminium finally open, There appear two triumphant graces who, Amorous and mortal, release the steam And vaporise the freedom.

Two young girls have proved sufficient To smear sex on those faces Deprived of existence and of brightness. Between kisses and stations, they have tamed Beasts that reek of rage, Flesh that to ardour wakes.

It seems to me that death may be The greatest of all masks Every errant devotee turns into a judge Who wishes reason won’t prevail Over any possible imaginings. With lavish gifts Of mind, their jewellery and dinars, Come deformed mysticisms, Swollen even more in richness Of golden fantasies. Folly as a ballast drags the Wit Along bumps and fords Of intricate cerebral volutes – Sometimes he who abuses language Also uses some of these, But can’t just figure or realise which, And a monument to corpses then he builds. Guilt a mystery is indeed That creates and then inflames a feeling, Thought to be a serious art For the inveterate joy of children. Lines that, in life, were strange Are now glorious, complex bundles Gilded by the years. The dead man’s flaw is celebrated In the living’s mind, But graveyard dust corrupts Of the arrogant the carcass.

The happy occasion of an encounter, almost amorous, maybe furtive: There’s the upright volume, minimal Among othersit beckons with a title Of distinguished golden looks. The usefulness of a dictionary pales Before the joy of what is found On silent pages, perhaps A muted riot of words Enclaved in yellow sheets. The Oxonian headings, modesty- Stricken, cram up in those spaces, With multiple consortia of streaks, Headbands, ribbons, onomastic Destinations of a language that, Nordic-born, was then reared Latin And Gaul – Saxon at the start, Became the world at last. An owner found for that blue Paper-brick that lightens up The mysteries and joys of an alien tongue.

MARIO MURGIA was born in Mexico City in 1973. He is probably the only Mexican Milton scholar and has been writing poetry since the age of 11. Being of Italian descent (his father was from Sardinia), he has always been aware of the joys of language-shifting, which has made of translation one of his most rewarding pleasures.